Out Of Cluck
by Red Witch
Summary: Krieger decides to go into the chicken breeding business.


**The disclaimer telling you that I don't own any Archer characters has flown the coop. Another strange idea that came out of a real-life news story. I admit it. My ideas are for the birds.**

 **Out Of Cluck **

"Ugh," Cyril groaned to the two people his office as he looked at some bills on his desk. "You know when Ms. Archer talked me into running a detective agency, I had no idea how much of a financial hole you could dig yourself into by actually **running** a detective agency."

Ray remarked. "What we really didn't have an idea of was how much Ms. Archer would let you run the agency. That's the shocker!"

"Ray!" Lana protested. "Come on! Give the woman a break! She had no idea her son was going to end up shot and in a coma."

"Honestly…" Cyril paused. "The odds of Archer getting into a coma for **some reason** were at least fifty-fifty. I just didn't think it would happen because he was shot by a movie star for a billion-dollar insurance scam."

"You thought it would be some jealous husband," Ray said. "Or Barry."

Cyril added. "Or Lana."

"Yeah I can see that," Ray nodded.

"What?" Lana looked at them.

"Oh, like you never shot him before!" Ray rolled his eyes.

"In the foot!" Lana protested.

"Three times," Cyril added.

"Just saying darlin'," Ray shrugged. "Fourth time would have pushed you over the edge."

"I would **not** have shot…" Lana paused. "Damn it. You're right."

"Just saying," Ray told her. "I also didn't think the detective business would get so downright dull."

"It hasn't exactly been dull," Lana said. "We're just in a rough patch."

"Lana we were in a rough patch when we formed a **cocaine cartel,"** Cyril looked at her. "And couldn't sell any cocaine! We need something new to bring revenue into this agency. Something that preferably doesn't involve bullets or drugs."

"Bawk! Bawk!"

"Lana I'm not a chicken for wanting to find a better way to make money!" Cyril snapped.

"That wasn't me," Lana blinked.

"Me either," Ray said.

"Well if it wasn't…?" Cyril happened to look out his office door. "What the hell?"

They looked and saw a chicken with pink, purple and neon green feathers strutting by. "That's new," Ray blinked.

"Where the hell did **that** come from?" Lana's jaw dropped.

"Do you really need to ask?" Ray groaned.

"KRIEGER!" They all said at the same time.

The chicken ran off and they followed it into the break room. There were a few other chickens of the same color strutting around. "Here chick, chick, chick…" Pam was following them around.

"Ooh! Birdies!" Cheryl grinned. "I wonder what their names are?"

"Well that one I'm calling Dinner," Pam pointed. "That one is Lunch. That one is Barbecue…"

"KRIEGER!" Cyril shouted.

"Yeeessss?" Krieger walked up with a multicolored chicken under his arm.

"What is all this?" Cyril pointed.

"Krieger's growing chickens," Pam explained. "And we asked him to bring some up here to show us."

"Why bring them **up here**?" Cyril asked.

"Do you really want to go down to Krieger's lab?" Ray asked.

"I do not," Cyril realized.

"That's why," Ray sighed.

"I'm going to ask a really obvious question now," Lana sighed. "Krieger why are you breeding multicolored chickens?"

" **That's** your question?" Cheryl blinked. "I thought it would be why do you wear the same outfit every single day?"

"That's a question **you** ask Lana," Pam corrected.

"Oh right," Cheryl realized.

"I'm breeding chickens to sell," Krieger explained as he put the chicken down.

"You're breeding chickens that look like they ate one too many boxes of Lucky Charms?" Lana looked at them. "Why?"

"It's the latest thing," Krieger said. "Especially for Silicon Valley."

"Silicon Valley?" Pam blinked. "As in Tech Geek Capital of the World?"

"A lot of coders find chickens a way to relax and connect with nature," Krieger explained.

"And possibly dinner when their startup runs out of money," Cheryl added.

"Chickens?" Lana was stunned.

"Chickens," Krieger nodded.

 _"Chickens?"_ Lana asked again.

"It's not **that** hard to imagine," Pam told her. "I raised chickens on the farm."

"So did I," Ray nodded.

"And I killed one of them!" Cheryl grinned. "Bawk! Bawk!"

"There are thousands of chicken coops all over Silicon Valley now," Krieger said. "I figured why not jump on the bandwagon?"

"Krieger," Lana blinked. "Chickens with purple, neon green and pink feathers are not on a bandwagon. They're on a float in a **gay pride parade!"**

Ray looked at her. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

"I think what Lana is confused about…" Cyril began. "And admittedly I'm confused about is why a group of people who are not exactly known for doing **anything outside** at all would choose to have chickens as pets? I mean, these are living breathing creatures."

"As well as shitting and screaming creatures," Lana added. "I mean what? Did they play one too many games of Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons?"

"Yes, this is Silicon Valley," Cyril added. "Not Stardew Valley."

"Maybe those games are like a gateway drug for farming?" Pam suggested.

"A lot of people find raising chickens a stress release," Krieger explained.

"Krieger I **actually raised** chickens as a child," Ray looked at him. "It wasn't exactly a Zen experience."

"Me too!" Pam said. "Did you have that one hen that always attacked people?"

"We had **three,** " Ray groaned. "And guess who their favorite target was?"

"You should have done what I did," Pam smirked.

"Let me guess," Cheryl said. "First chicken that pecked you ended up as dinner?"

"How'd you know that?" Pam asked. "The point is, after that day…No bird ever dared to peck me again. And trust me, I really egged them on. Pun intended."

"I bet Pam made Colonel Sanders look like Mr. Rodgers to those birds," Ray whistled.

"I've already sold a dozen of these babies," Krieger grinned. "Trust me, Kriester Eggers will be the latest thing in the designer chicken business. And at two hundred dollars a chick, we could make a fortune!"

"Hang on," Ray said. "These chickens, they're not radioactive, are they?"

"No," Krieger shook his head.

"They don't shoot lasers or breathe fire or anything like that?" Ray asked.

"No," Krieger said.

"They don't grow to like ten feet tall, do they?" Ray asked.

"No, these are as big as these babies get," Krieger told him.

"They're not cannibals, are they?" Pam asked.

"If by cannibals you mean they eat **each other,** then no," Krieger looked at her. "And they don't eat people either. Even if they did eat people they wouldn't technically be cannibals."

"They're not cyborgs, right?" Cheryl asked.

"I can see why you'd ask that," Krieger admitted. "But no. A friend of mine tried robot chickens…Didn't work well for him."

"Just so I'm clear," Cyril spoke up. "These are normal ordinary chickens. With nothing extra added to them. No weirdness at all. Is that right?"

"No," Krieger said. "They're just normal chickens with different colored feathers that aren't radioactive! Or cyborgs! Or anything odd at all! Except that they have rainbow feathers. That's it!"

"And…?" Cyril began.

"And the agency gets a twenty five percent cut of the profits," Krieger added.

"Then I have no problem with this," Cyril shrugged.

"Uh I have a problem with this," Lana spoke up.

"Quelle surprise!" Cheryl mocked.

"Lana has a problem," Pam said.

"Lana **is** a problem," Cheryl snorted.

"Have we all forgotten Krieger's track record?" Lana asked.

"Now boarding," Ray mocked. "The 359 to Disaster Town."

"Every time Krieger makes some kind of animal in his lab," Lana added. "It ends up only one of two ways. A disaster or a complete disaster!"

"Name one time…" Krieger began.

"The giant Komodo dragons," Lana interrupted.

"That ate a few interns," Ray added.

"The exploding mice," Lana went on.

"That blew up a few interns," Ray added.

"The tiny dinosaurs," Lana added.

"That peed on a few interns," Ray added. "And got stepped on."

"The transgendered frogs," Lana went on. "The fire breathing pigeons. The llamas. The spiders. The bats. The laser snakes. The Krieglins! Milton! Mark my words, this whole chicken thing will be nothing but trouble."

"You don't know that," Krieger said.

"Oh yes we do," Ray groaned. "Every time you create something in your lab, it always backfires! On us!"

"How?" Krieger asked. "How could a bunch of multicolored chickens cause trouble?"

"I don't know," Lana said. "That's always part of the **fun!** I don't know how, but I **know** it will backfire **somehow."**

"And by fun," Ray added. "She means turning into a horror movie."

"If history has taught us anything," Lana went on.

"Repeatedly taught us the very same lesson," Ray added.

"Krieger and his experiments are a bad and dangerous combination," Lana added. "No offense."

"None taken," Krieger shrugged. "Look I know my track record hasn't exactly been great."

"Oh, it has," Ray said. "Great disasters. Great deaths. Great mayhem…"

"But this time I purposely made these chickens as harmless as possible," Krieger said. "Trust me."

"We do trust you," Ray said. "Trust you to make a complete mess out of this!"

"All I did was tweak a few chromosomes," Krieger shrugged. "What could happen?"

"That's the same question they asked in Jurassic Park when they started cloning dinosaurs," Ray reminded him.

"It's not just me is it?" Lana asked Ray.

"No, it isn't," Ray shook his head. "Guys this has happened so many times. It's practically a running gag."

"Like Krieger's robot bear," Lana added.

"Or Ray's legs," Pam added. Everyone looked at her. "Like I was the **only one** thinking that!"

"Ehhh," Krieger, Cheryl, Cyril and Lana admitted.

"HEY!" Ray snapped. "You know…?"

"I do know this will end in disaster," Lana spoke up. "And Ray's right. This has been done before."

"Many, many, many, many times before," Ray sighed.

"Lana the only things different about these chickens are the colors of their feathers and eggs," Krieger told her. "And their wings are slightly bigger and meatier."

"They don't look that much bigger," Pam looked at a chicken.

"It's more on a genetic level," Krieger admitted. "But they're still normal healthy chickens. With no antibiotics."

"So that's the one drug you **didn't use**?" Ray asked.

"Pretty much yes," Krieger admitted. "Guys it's different this time! I promise!"

"We've heard that before," Lana said. "I want no part of this!"

"Neither do I," Ray said. "Cyril, I know you're desperate for money but even you can't be **this desperate**!"

"Shows what you know," Cyril said. "I am! We're in!"

"I want on record that Ray and I are against this!" Lana snapped.

"Record?" Cheryl blinked. "Am I supposed to be writing this down?"

"It doesn't matter!" Pam said. "Cheryl and I are for this! Majority rules bitches!"

"And as the head of the agency I authorize this!" Cyril said. "Provided the agency gets a cut."

"Democracy in action!" Cheryl cheered.

"YAYYY!" Pam cheered.

"Disaster in action," Ray groaned.

"Yay," Lana groaned.

"Trust me guys," Krieger said. "This is a can't miss business venture."

"Which means sooner or later disaster will **not miss** our business," Ray remarked.

A few weeks later…

"Another day of doing nothing and nothing going on," Pam remarked to Ray, Lana, Cheryl and Krieger in the bullpen. "Nice and quiet…"

"KRIEGER!" Cyril was heard shouting.

"Not for long," Lana quipped.

"Gee I wonder what this could be **about**?" Ray said sarcastically.

"What could it be about?" Pam asked. "Seriously it's Krieger. It could literally be **anything.** "

"Uh oh," Krieger winced. "I think Cyril found out…"

"About what?" Cheryl asked. "I'm seriously asking."

"KRIEGER!" Cyril stormed in.

"CYRIL!" Krieger shouted back. "I always wanted to do that."

"Me too," Ray admitted.

"No **problems** huh?" Cyril snapped. "A **can't miss** business venture you said! Just tweaking a few chromosomes, you said!"

"Again," Pam spoke up. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"I'm talking about that god damn chicken business Krieger cooked up!" Cyril snapped. "WHICH LEFT EGGS ALL OVER OUR FACES!"

"Oh yeah, I forgot all about that," Pam realized.

"Me too," Cheryl said.

"Called it!" Lana cheered.

"This should be good," Ray remarked.

"SHUT UP!" Cyril snapped. "And you are in big trouble Colonel Krieger!"

"Cyril, you're overreacting," Krieger said nervously. "There's no real problems."

"Oh no real problems you say?" Cyril asked sarcastically.

"No," Krieger kept a straight face.

"You're saying we have **no problems at all** with your chicken business?" Cyril snapped.

"Yes," Krieger kept on denying.

"THEN HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN **THIS**?" Cyril turned on the monitor.

A familiar red haired female reporter was shown. "This is Grace Ryan from Wolf News. Silicon Valley is known for high tech innovation. However, it is now the center of a surprisingly low-tech problem. Runaway wild chickens."

"This does not bode well," Pam blinked as images of several rainbow-colored chickens ran amok on the streets.

"One of the newest fads among the tech elite is to raise chickens," Grace reported. "As a way of releasing stress and getting back to nature. Ironically these unusual colored chickens called Kriester Eggers are causing stress and becoming too natural."

More images of the multicolored birds running amok were shown. One chicken was sitting on a car crowing. A few more were being chased out of a coffee shop. And several more were strutting along a sidewalk.

"Several of these Kriester Eggers managed to not only escape their coops," Grace went on. "But breed with several other chickens in other coops. And admittedly some other breeds of chickens that also escaped their coops."

A young man with a beard and long hair wearing hipster clothes was shown. "I thought it would be fun to raise chickens. I mean I've done it a million times on Harvest Moon. How hard could it be? I mean I thought raising free range chickens would be easy. Didn't realize that you had to keep them in a pen…Because you know? Free range…"

"The chickens in Silicon Valley have been thriving due to partly a lack of natural predators," Grace went on. "As well as the rapid breeding and growth rate of the birds as well as…"

"BAAAWWWWWWK!"

"AAAHHH!" Grace screamed as a multicolored chicken dive bombed her.

"I didn't know chickens could fly," Cheryl blinked.

"They can," Pam told her.

"BAWWWK! BAWWK!" The multicolored chicken flew around and dive bombed her.

"AAAHHHHH!" Grace screamed and ran around like…Well like a chicken about to have its head cut off. "OW! OW! OW!"

"But not that well…" Pam blinked.

"GET IT! GET IT!" Some animal control officers ran over and tried to catch the chicken with a net.

"BAWWK! BAWWWWWWWWWWWK!"

Only to be attacked by a flock of organized chickens. "RETREAT! RETREAT!" One of the animal control officers screamed.

"COME BACK HERE YOU CHICKENS!" Grace screamed as she dove under a picnic table for shelter. "AND I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE DAMN BIRDS!"

"How are they flying so well?" Ray asked.

"Well…." Krieger scratched his head. "Remember when I told you I made their wings slightly bigger and meatier?"

"No," Cheryl blinked.

"Long story short…" Krieger began.

"BAWWWWK! BAWWWWK!"

"That small change was enough to make them able to fly," Ray pieced it together.

"And because they can fly," Pam realized. "They can roost in high places like trees or on top of buildings where it's harder to catch them."

"BAWWK!"

"Like on that high rise," Pam pointed to the picture on the screen.

"And since most chickens can mature between four to six weeks…" Ray realized.

"Kriester Eggers mature in three and a half," Krieger interjected.

Ray went on. "And they start laying eggs from between six weeks to four years depending on the breed."

"Kriester Eggers start laying eggs at four weeks," Krieger interjected again.

"And let's assume a clutch of eggs usually hatch in 21 days," Pam added.

"Kriester Eggers hatch in exactly 13 days," Krieger added.

"Good number," Ray said dryly as more images of chickens attacking people were shown. "So basically, we have a very large population of super chickens invading a populated area within a few weeks!"

"Okay technically that's not all my fault," Krieger pointed out. "A lot of that is due to irresponsible chicken owners who just let the animals roam around freely."

"We shouldn't let **you** roam around freely," Cyril groaned as he turned off the monitor.

"Gee this ended up as a complete and total failure," Lana quipped.

"What a shock," Ray said dryly. "Who could have seen **this** coming?"

"Oh wait," Lana paused. "WE DID!"

"SHUT UP!" Cyril snapped.

"They do have a point," Krieger admitted.

"We really do fall for this a lot, don't we?" Cheryl asked.

"That and getting tricked by our clients," Pam admitted. "Who don't pay us."

"Or want to use us for some kind of ruse," Cheryl added.

"Guys I'm starting to think this group is rather gullible," Krieger realized.

"Well we are optimists for the most part," Pam shrugged.

"We're insane for the most part," Lana groaned.

"So how much money in refunds did we lose?" Cyril sighed.

"Not as much as you'd think," Krieger admitted. "Luckily I put a clause stating that you had to keep them in a covered coop so they wouldn't escape. It's the fines from the PWCPA and The Better Farming Business Bureau that will hit us."

"The PWCPA?" Lana asked.

"Poultry and Waterfowl Consumer Protection Agency," Krieger explained. "Apparently this is a thing."

"How much do we have to pay up?" Cyril groaned.

"Thirty-five grand in fines," Krieger admitted. "And we have to promise to never sell chickens ever again."

"That's actually pretty light for us," Ray admitted.

"We've paid more than that in fines for littering," Pam said. "By the way Cyril I kind of racked up another five thousand dollar fine for spreading around more Figgis Agency fliers…"

"PAM!" Cyril shouted.

"Not a good time?" Pam asked.

"Read the room woman!" Ray snapped.

"Oh right," Pam realized. "We're still on the chicken thing. Never mind."

"Oh," Krieger said. "They also want us to catch the chickens ourselves."

"That's not going to happen is it?" Cheryl blinked.

"Noooope," Lana admitted.

A few more weeks later…

"Good news everyone!" Krieger walked into the bullpen where the other members of the Figgis Agency were.

"What the hell is good about it Professor Farnsworth?" Cyril snapped.

"Remember my Kriester Eggers?" Krieger asked.

"The wild mutant chickens that developed the power of accurate flying and are now terrorizing Silicon Valley?" Lana asked. "The ones Ray and I said were a bad idea?"

"But of course, no one listened to us," Ray added. "Especially Cyril."

"And now we're being held accountable for them," Lana added.

"Especially Cyril," Ray added.

"And we have to pay some fines and refund money," Lana finished.

"Again, Cyril…" Ray added.

"Don't remind me!" Cyril snapped. "That stupid waterfowl association sent me a final notice for payment!"

"Was the form pink or blue?" Krieger asked.

"Blue," Cyril said.

"Then it wasn't really a final notice," Krieger waved. "Trust me, even when it's pink it's not a problem. But that's not the good news! The chickens have decided to migrate!"

"What?" Lana asked.

"Yeah the majority of them just took off for greener pastures," Krieger nodded. "I had tracking monitors in a few of them that I sold so…"

"So where did those birds fly the coop to?" Pam asked.

"Canada," Krieger said.

"Are we still banned from Canada?" Pam asked.

"Who remembers?" Lana groaned.

"Well they're Canada's problem now," Cyril sighed.

"It's only fair," Cheryl added. "Look at all the messes those Canadian Geese make!"

"She has a point," Ray remarked.

"That means the PWPCA are not going to be breathing down our necks anytime soon," Krieger said. "We could always say we got rid of a lot of the chickens if they do. Since they flew into another country…"

"Do we have **any money** left over from this fiasco?" Cyril sighed.

"Only twenty-five grand," Krieger admitted.

"So…" Pam blinked. "We're good."

"I'll take it," Cyril sighed. "And not just the results, I'm taking the twenty-five grand for the agency."

"Cyril!" Lana gasped.

"Fine Lana! I'll do something about it!" Cyril said sarcastically. "Krieger you did a bad thing. Don't do it again."

"But odds are he will," Cheryl spoke up.

"Yeah probably," Krieger nodded.

"Odds are I'm going to murder you all one of these days," Cyril groaned.

"Yeah but you're too chicken," Pam quipped. Cyril glared at her. "Get it? What? Too soon?"


End file.
